Hello,
We have a flame dwarf gouriami that seems to be "moping". My wife fed the fish this morning and saw that the flame was staying still at the bottom of the tank in the corner. We try to error on the side of under-feeding rather than over and always get a strong response to food whenever it is put in the tank. The flame just stayed at the bottom though. My wife came in and said that one of the flames was "moping". I finished getting ready and checked on the flame about 20 minutes later. The flame was now in the same corner but near the surface. It is tilted slightly upwards with the head closer to the surface than the tail and is almost motionless. Other than the tilt he is prefectly straight in a swimming position though. I watched it for about 15 minutes and it made a slight move with it's tail every once in a while to stay in it's position and went to the surface for air once. The fish doesn't appear to be gasping or hurt (hard to tell for sure though since he's behind the heater- but everything I can see looks fine). Since he was right next to the heater I checked 10 spots of the tank and the temps were all 77.8 and 78 right next to the fish at the heater. That temp has been pretty constant since we got them about a month ago (it got up to just under 80 when we had a heat wave). I put a small amount of food right on top of him but did not get any response...3 H&Ts gobbled up the food instead ignoring the flame.
I have been doing daily to every other day 10% PWC since we got them to get rid of some of the tannins that are leeching from 2 small new pieces of drift wood that were put in at the same time as the fish. Water params (with the exception of nitrates) have been extremely stable:
Tank is a 46 gal bow stocked with 8 head and taillight tetras, 8 rummynose tetras, 5 gouramis (3 flame dwarfs 2 standard blue dwarfs) and 2 cherry shrimp (i think- we don't see them much) with a fair number of young plants and some snails from the plants...uhg to snails. About 3 WPG coming from PCF lighting about 12 hours per day (on a timer so very constant).
Food: Tetramin Pro Tropical Crisps
temp: 77.8 (heater is set to 78 ) -constant with exception of recent heat wave
ph: 8.0 (same as outgassed tap) -constant even with the driftwood
kH: 3 -this is very constant too but outgassed tap is 5-6
ammonia: 0 (did a fishless cycle) -constant even after adding fish
nitrites: 0 -constant with ammonia
nitrates: 5 -this has been constant for about two weeks but started at 20 (where I wanted to keep it) but dropped over four days when Madagascar Lace went crazy and sprouted 6 new leaves.
I slowed my 10% PWCs from daily to everyother when the nitrates went down but they continued to fall.
Chems: I use stress coat as a dechlor with every PWC, I treated with stress zyme but only when the fish were added, I treat Florish (for the plants) evey 4 days...nothing else ever.
I test daily to every other day - at least ammonia and ph but usually everything since I'm a chemist-at-heart and get giddy when I get to play with chemical indicators.
Thank you.
We have a flame dwarf gouriami that seems to be "moping". My wife fed the fish this morning and saw that the flame was staying still at the bottom of the tank in the corner. We try to error on the side of under-feeding rather than over and always get a strong response to food whenever it is put in the tank. The flame just stayed at the bottom though. My wife came in and said that one of the flames was "moping". I finished getting ready and checked on the flame about 20 minutes later. The flame was now in the same corner but near the surface. It is tilted slightly upwards with the head closer to the surface than the tail and is almost motionless. Other than the tilt he is prefectly straight in a swimming position though. I watched it for about 15 minutes and it made a slight move with it's tail every once in a while to stay in it's position and went to the surface for air once. The fish doesn't appear to be gasping or hurt (hard to tell for sure though since he's behind the heater- but everything I can see looks fine). Since he was right next to the heater I checked 10 spots of the tank and the temps were all 77.8 and 78 right next to the fish at the heater. That temp has been pretty constant since we got them about a month ago (it got up to just under 80 when we had a heat wave). I put a small amount of food right on top of him but did not get any response...3 H&Ts gobbled up the food instead ignoring the flame.
I have been doing daily to every other day 10% PWC since we got them to get rid of some of the tannins that are leeching from 2 small new pieces of drift wood that were put in at the same time as the fish. Water params (with the exception of nitrates) have been extremely stable:
Tank is a 46 gal bow stocked with 8 head and taillight tetras, 8 rummynose tetras, 5 gouramis (3 flame dwarfs 2 standard blue dwarfs) and 2 cherry shrimp (i think- we don't see them much) with a fair number of young plants and some snails from the plants...uhg to snails. About 3 WPG coming from PCF lighting about 12 hours per day (on a timer so very constant).
Food: Tetramin Pro Tropical Crisps
temp: 77.8 (heater is set to 78 ) -constant with exception of recent heat wave
ph: 8.0 (same as outgassed tap) -constant even with the driftwood
kH: 3 -this is very constant too but outgassed tap is 5-6
ammonia: 0 (did a fishless cycle) -constant even after adding fish
nitrites: 0 -constant with ammonia
nitrates: 5 -this has been constant for about two weeks but started at 20 (where I wanted to keep it) but dropped over four days when Madagascar Lace went crazy and sprouted 6 new leaves.
I slowed my 10% PWCs from daily to everyother when the nitrates went down but they continued to fall.
Chems: I use stress coat as a dechlor with every PWC, I treated with stress zyme but only when the fish were added, I treat Florish (for the plants) evey 4 days...nothing else ever.
I test daily to every other day - at least ammonia and ph but usually everything since I'm a chemist-at-heart and get giddy when I get to play with chemical indicators.
Thank you.